Past and Present: A Time to Remember
By David Rice
I’ve been quiet lately. More quiet than a loudmouth like me would ever prefer.
Such is the nature of the current situation that there simply isn’t a lot to say much of the time. You sit in your house and eat, work, read, eat, try to go out and see the sun, eat again, maybe have a few drinks and then…. Probably eat again.
While we’re all sitting around getting fat and watching the world go to shit, the only tastes of watching Liverpool play football we get are in replays of old matches and people playing video games. It’s a bit like wanting pizza, but only having those Lunchables things they give kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a classic match. My hair still stands up when I re-watch that Barca fixture or Dortmund or some of the recent matches against City. But you know there’s nothing quite like living those moments as they happen. We’ve already been given those gifts, the absence of the joy of uncertainty is too much to bear. The more I watch, the more I don’t want to in some ways.
We’re in a place where we have an opportunity to do something we never really do. I say opportunity intentionally. Not because it’s something we all need to make the most of, but more so cause I’m trying to view it in a positive light, something between an albatross around our necks and a joyous celebration of the fact there’s literally nothing else to do aside from immerse myself in yard work or worse, actual work. But I digress.
We have the opportunity to reflect on what it is about this we all love. A chance to see what life would be like without football in the eye and take stock of the things about it we long for. The goal celebrations, the post-match jubilation, the commiseration in defeat, and all the other routines that come together to shape the friendships and experiences which form the substance of your Liverpool supporting life.
As much as we all want trophies and incredible goals, their primary purpose is to give a sense of endeavor and collective triumph, the allure of which keeps us going in search of others, no matter where that may be, who feed off it the way we do. But in the end, it isn’t what I miss the most, and I’d venture a guess it isn’t what you miss either.
You could get those same sensations in other sports, but you don’t. In truth, you could find the sense of community in other interests, but you’ve chosen this one. Why?
Put simply, it is the togetherness you find in supporting Liverpool that makes it special, that inspires fans to organize mass gatherings outside of matches and to cultivate relationships in places where they likely wouldn’t have existed otherwise.
What I miss about all this, is the thing that makes it special in the first place. It’s us. The collective coming together to lose its mind over something a half a world away, something most of the people around us don’t really care about or even understand.
Most experiences in life that we savor end up being attached to your ego somehow. You go on vacations to places that you want, choose places to eat based on your interests and tastes, listen to music and watch television you want cause you like it and you are in control of it.
With this, what makes it unique and what makes it worth handing yourself over to it, is that so much of it has nothing to do with you and that is simultaneously relaxing and stressful. You have to do nothing except show up and watch with your friends, yet you become emotionally invested in something you have no control over or say in, and we do it in a way that we don’t do with anything else in our lives.
And now, as you are trapped in quarantine for what feels like the 42nd week in a row, you are likely finding the boredom difficult to deal with. The boredom of a space where the only thing that isn’t centering around you in your existence is the act of keeping to yourself. Let’s be real, this is a strange fucking way to live and I for one can’t wait to get back out into the world and see all your shiny smiles and hopefully watch Liverpool win their first Premier League title in the scorching hot, borderline unbearable summer sun.
But just as this feeling of longing for that day is beginning to intensify, just as I begin to bemoan an existence without football, another reminder that there are things in this life that are bigger than football comes along.
Today marks 31 years since the Hillsborough disaster, a day that the city of Liverpool will never forget and one that changed the course of football forever. The way it was marketed, sold and experienced everyday since.
More importantly, a day that still sits deep in the heart of every person who has grown close to this club down the years, and a day that makes you remember why you’ll never walk alone has to mean something.
In my time supporting Liverpool, I have come to understand the events of that day as best I can and realized what an important part of the city and club’s DNA it is. It drives the sense of community and it reminds us that we have to stick together, even when we’re forced to be apart.
There’s a lot of negativity making the rounds in particularly disgusting corners of the internet. Ignore it. There will be so called “banter” from other supporters. Ignore them. If ever there was a day and a time for all of us to stick together, today is it. Of course, we can’t actually be together, but reach out to your fellow Reds. Converse, ponder the future, check in with each other, vent a bit.
The isolation is temporary and the better we all do with it, the sooner we can get back to something resembling normal, or at least tipping a few back and watching the Reds together.
The events of the last year would seem to suggest that justice is never going to come for the 96, their suffering permanently shrouded in the mischaracterization of events by people who specialized in alternative facts and fake news long before they were popular talking points. That justice isn’t coming, at least not in any judicial sense. The only thing we can do is stick together and remember them, remember what the loss of those people has meant to the club and the role it played in shaping the identity of the greater Liverpool supporting community.
But as much as we do that, we can’t ignore the current circumstance. Take a bit of time and remember each other today. One of us could be sick, some of us may be lost to these circumstances.
Remember, You’ll Never Walk Alone isn’t just a song or some marketing slogan. It’s words to live by, a way of moving forward through your life. Days like today are days you make it mean something.
Stay safe, stay healthy and good luck. I hope I’ll see you sooner rather than later, but until then, even in isolation. YNWA.
